New technology will allow you to whack your phone to stop it from ringing

posted by John V. / Jan 15, 2010, 4:11 PM

After so many years, why hasn’t someone come out with a better way of silencing a cell phone without having the need to fumble around for it? We’ve all been in those awkward situations when you accidentally forget to place your handset on silent and it rings so loud that all eyes are on you. Even worse is when you place it on vibrate, but it’s still strong enough to make its presence known. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh are planning on creating a new system for phones that involve whacking or hitting the phone while in the pocket to stop it from ringing. Sounds pretty neat we’d say – especially in those situations when you’re digging around to find out where you placed your phone. Using an accelerometer would be essential in this new technology – it’ll be required to register the specific “whack gestures”. In any case, we can definitely see this being implemented in handsets – those uncomfortable situations can easily be avoided with this.

Posts: 472; Member since: Jul 15, 2009

posted on Jan 15, 2010, 7:34 PM 0

Posts: 80; Member since: Dec 29, 2008

The original Samsung Omnia had the "flip over to silence" feature, however a "whack to silence" would be much more useful. I don't think a lot of people leave their phones sitting on a flat surface all the time, it would be cool to be able to just hit the phone while it was in your pocket.

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